Introduction and Wirral Council plan
Wirral Council’s vision is to create equity for people and place and opportunities for all to secure the best possible future for our residents, communities, and businesses. Wirral Council’s vision has been developed to build on five thematic priorities that focus on improving outcomes for whole population groups. The work of the Adult Social care team is in support of these objectives.
Its main priorities are:
- Sustainable Environment
Working towards a clean-energy, sustainable borough that leads the way in its response to the climate emergency and is environmentally friendly.
- Brighter Futures
Working together for brighter futures for our children, young people and their families by breaking the cycle of poor outcomes for all regardless of their background.
- Inclusive Economy
Working for a prosperous, inclusive economy - helping businesses to thrive and creating jobs and opportunities for all.
- Safe and Vibrant Communities
Working for safe and vibrant communities where our residents feel safe and are proud to live and raise their families.
- Active and Healthy Lives
Working to provide happy, active, and healthy lives for all, with the right care, at the right time to enable residents to live longer and healthier lives.
Healthy Wirral
Our Healthy Wirral Plan sets out our priorities and outlines how we plan to make Wirral a place where people can make the most of their health and independence. Its vision is:
“Our vision is to enable all people in Wirral to live longer and healthier lives by taking simple steps of their own to improve their health and wellbeing. By achieving this together we can provide the very best health and social care services when people really need them, as close to home as possible”.
You can read the Healthy Wirral Place Programme
The Working Health and Care system partners are working collaboratively to improve the health and wellbeing of people in Wirral, and this work is being overseen, planned, and delivered by the Healthy Wirral Programme. The Healthy Wirral Plan Priorities are:
- Community-based health services (e.g., access to GPs, community nurses and social workers) seven days a week
- More services currently delivered within the hospital setting to be delivered within the community, by consultant-led teams
- Health and social care professionals working together with patients who have ongoing needs: one assessment, one care plan, one key coordinator
- Specialist in-patient hospital care for those that need it
- Support for people to look after themselves and stay healthy
Working with our partners from the Integrated Care Board (ICB) and commissioning and provider colleagues in the Wirral “place”, we will cooperate as one to help people to help themselves where they can, and support only those with the greatest need. Our local Community Care Market and Voluntary and Community Sector also form a major part in our one system approach and are working together to deliver the best possible outcomes for people.
Our two key aims of the Care Act are to:
- Prevent and delay of the need for care
- Support people in control of their care
Commissioning and Intelligence
Commissioning is the process by which local authorities look at local needs and decide how to spend their money to get the best possible outcome for individuals and communities.
Our Adult Social Care policies, commissioning strategies and market position statements set out the desired outcomes and the approaches to achieving these.
Residents, carers, and partners are at the heart of our commissioning cycle. They are involved at all stages, and we make sure that people's views and experiences are heard, considered, and strongly influence how we get the best possible services: we call this co-production.
You can access information about Adult Social Care here: https://www.wirral.gov.uk/health-and-social-care/adult-social-care
Our Wirral Intelligence service can provide our partners and contracted services with a wealth of data and intelligence, including demographic data to support our strategic intent. You can see this here: https://www.wirralintelligenceservice.org
The Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) is an assessment of the current and future health and social care needs of the local community. The JSNA informs the Healthy Wirral Strategy which is a strategy for meeting the needs identified in the JSNA. These are needs that could be met by the local authority, Integrated Care Board or NHS England.
The JSNA is a continuous process and is updated as additional information becomes available, as gaps are identified and in response to feedback received. We would welcome your feedback and suggestions on the priorities emerging from the JSNA. You can see the JSNA here:
https://www.wirralintelligenceservice.org/jsna/
You can provide feedback on the JSNA by using this e mail address: wirralintelligenceservice@wirral.gov.uk and you can subscribe to updates by completing a form on the JSNA homepage.
Market Position Statement
Our Market Position Statement describes to the market what our commissioning intentions are for the future, and what we will consider to be our main priorities. Links to the Wirral Intelligence service and other intelligence sources will help providers of care and third sector to research Local Intelligence to support their business thinking and decision making.
Market Sustainability Plan
The council has developed a Market Sustainability plan, which was published in March 2023 to the Department of Health and Social Care.
The council has Care Act duty to ensure there is:
- A sufficient supply of services to ensure continuity of care with minimal disruption in the event of providers exiting from the market
- A range of high-quality services for people to choose from
- A sufficient investment in its workforce to enable the attraction and retention of high-quality care staff
- Evidence of innovation and service diversity in order to evolve and meet changing user needs
- An attractive offer to new market entrants and be able to manage and offset the impact of future market changes
Our market assessment has been informed by a range of relevant data such as CQC returns, NHS capacity tracker and Adult Social Care Finance return (ASC-FR) and Short and Long Term (SALT) collection, as well as local intelligence. As part of that assessment, we have considered a number of indicators of market sustainability, alongside the cost of care, including:
- Sufficiency of supply to ensure continuity of care (for example, are there some geographical areas where there are concerns regarding capacity, or over reliance on a small number of providers)
- Levels of diversity in the market (both type of services as well as types of providers)
- Quality of current services and whether there are concerns about quality in particular areas
- Current average fee rates paid and if there is any underpayment compared to the cost of care calculated
- Whether the current market conditions support development of the workforce, and whether there are recruitment challenges such as high levels of staff vacancies or staff turnover rates
Wirral Health and Wellbeing Plan 2022-2027
The Wirral Health & Wellbeing Strategy 2022-27 has been developed by Wirral Health and Wellbeing Board, which is a collective of local organisations including the council, NHS, Healthwatch, the Community, Voluntary and Faith Sector, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority, Merseyside Police, the Department for Work and Pensions and Wirral Metropolitan College.
Every area is required to have a Health and Wellbeing Board. Their job is to improve the health and wellbeing of the local population, as a partnership committee, producing a joint assessment of health needs and a joint health and wellbeing strategy.
The strategy focuses on our mutual priorities, resources and assets that will make the biggest difference to improving health in Wirral. It sets out the shared ambition, solutions, and approaches, using the best of the borough’s combined strengths and capabilities.
It is built upon what Wirral residents have said about being healthy and what evidence suggests works to help. The Strategy complements the work of individual organisations and contributes to the delivery of the Wirral Plan 2021-2026. It also a key part of the vision for the Cheshire & Merseyside Integrated Care System, which has a duty to work closely with the Health and Wellbeing Board. More broadly it supports the local delivery of All Together Fairer, Cheshire and Merseyside’s collaborative approach to reducing differences in health outcomes.
The strategy has five priorities, these are:
Priority 1: Create opportunities to get the best health outcomes from the economy and regeneration programmes
Priority 2: Strengthen health and care action to address differences in health outcomes
Priority 3: Ensure the best start in life for all children and young people
Priority 4: Create safe and healthy places for people to live that protect health and promote a good standard of living
Priority 5: Create a culture of health and wellbeing, listening to residents and working together
View the Wirral Health and Wellbeing Plan
Wirral NHS Place Plan
Our new Place partnership strengthens our existing track record of collaboration and joint working and brings together the NHS, Wirral Council and the Voluntary, Community & Faith sector. We want to address the inequalities that exist in our communities and work with people to help them lead healthier lives. By working in partnership, we can not only just focus on health and care but also empower people to seek new opportunities in education, employment and to take an active part in their community.
Our partnership is committed to achieving the best for people in Wirral.
Key Priorities for the plan are:
- Recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and transforming our Place by implementing the Wirral Plan 2021-2026.
- Refreshing, refocusing, and strengthening partnerships and collaboration in Wirral to support delivery of our plans.
- Improving population outcomes and tackling health inequalities by addressing the needs of our population in a more targeted way.
View the Wirral NHS place plan
Quality improvement
We will continue to work with the Wirral Community Care market to improve the quality of services provided and to ensure that Care Quality Commission ratings improve. New models of assessing and working with our commissioned service providers, will improve the quality of services provided. This approach will strengthen our local responses and providing clarity for our providers of our strategic intent for quality and improve outcomes for people with a more coordinated and direct response.
Quality improvement is fundamental to providing good care to people that meets our standards. Wirral continues to be challenged with a large number of services rated as Requires Improvement. This needs to improve, therefore improvement within the community care market remains a priority for Wirral Council. Poor-quality services are not acceptable to the people of Wirral and as the commissioning authority, Wirral Council is in a position where actions must be taken to drive improvement and to inform the public of actions being taken.
Self-Funders
Self-funders are people who purchase care services themselves and use the Wirral care market as well as for those individuals whose care is funded by the state. The market needs to work well for current and prospective self-funders, they must be able to make well-informed choices, and must be protected if things do not work out as expected. But also, the market must support the council’s intention to ensure that all those who have care needs have them met. This requires that the local care market is sustainable, so that efficient care providers can continue to operate, and that the sector is positioned to invest to meet growing future needs.
Choices on care are an incredibly important decision taken by or on behalf of individuals who are often extremely vulnerable. The nature and quality of care has a massive impact on the person’s happiness, health, and longevity.
Ideally, for the community market to meet people’s needs as well as it should, those entering care must be able to make an informed choice, and those within care must be sufficiently empowered to identify and address shortcomings in the service they receive.
Choosing a care service is often an extremely difficult decision for people to make at a point in their lives when they are particularly vulnerable.
We have identified that self-funders who require care need greater support in choosing a care service and protections when they are in receipt of the service. This is supported by the council publishing both links to CQC ratings and also information about Wirral contracted services on its website. You can find this information on the Wirral Infobank website
To support people, in their decision making we will:
- Provide people with good quality, relevant and timely support when they are making life-changing decisions about care.
- Help people quickly and easily identify the relevant, local care options that are available to them.
- Encourage and help people to prepare and plan for future care needs.
- Provide information about local services via Wirral Infobank and require providers to publish information about the services they provide there.
Providers can publish free of charge information about their services, and people can find information about local services, which are regulated and also community based at Wirral Infobank, a directory of community groups, services, and activities that can support people with their health and wellbeing.
Strategic Commissioning priorities up to 2026
Adult Social Care has the following strategic priorities with its community care market up to 2026, which will take us another step on our journey towards our vision of a modern service committed to promoting people's independence and wellbeing.
Top priorities are to:
Priority |
Timescale |
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Plan for, and implement the wide-ranging changes needed to deliver the government's reform of adult social care and other policy proposals. This will include reviews of the sustainability of the local care market for both funded and self-funding residents. |
2024-2025 |
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Collaborate with our community care market to ensure people who use Wirral services and their carers experience joined up working and good quality service which meets their needs. We will support this work with health and social work services which operate at a neighbourhood level. |
September 2023 |
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Improve the quality of community care market services provided to ensure we have a good offer available for the people of Wirral. |
Rolling programme 2023-2025 |
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Determine the future of in-house provision, and introduce some Wirral provided services like Shared Lives and reablement, which will work alongside community care market providers to deliver the best outcomes for people. |
December 2023 |
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Continue with our review of availability and range of accommodation with care and support and increase our Extra Care Offer as an alternative to residential care, decommissioning services where they no longer meet our local needs. |
Rolling Programme |
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Use technology to help reshape our services, provide joined up and personalised care which helps people to be as independent as possible. |
December 2024 |
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Support the Healthy Wirral programme and continue working with system partners to improve health and wellbeing outcomes for people. |
Rolling Programme |
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Ensure budget management and control to hold expenditure within agreed budget resources and deliver efficiency savings as part of the council's medium-term financial plan. |
March 2024 |
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Work with our community care market on the further development of sustainable and innovative models of care, with agreed rates. |
March 2026 |
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Relaunch and Implement our Carers strategy and embed our Carers Partnership Board. |
June 2023 |
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Work with our Health and Care system partners on a “Homefirst” model as a system priority and align a council reablement offer that aligns to the Home first principles, and works as part of a wider healthy and care system offer. |
October 2023 |
Our Neighbourhood Working Model and “Good Lives”
To ensure the best possible outcomes for our population across Wirral, we will work with our commissioned social work providers, our community care market and our third sector. We will work with our community leadership to design and develop a strong neighbourhood model, using population health data to underpin our decisions and moving to organising support more around natural communities, addressing their specific needs.
We will draw upon the broad range of resources, including voluntary and community sector as well as public services, using the full breadth our community assets ensuring that whilst working in partnership, we are using all of their skills knowledge and cultural expertise.
To do this we need strong system leadership, with an asset-based approach including strong local relationships and effective delivery networks across all sectors.
Place based care is about working in partnership to improve services; this requires us to build capacity in the voluntary sector and local communities to support people to be as healthy and well as they can be, taking collective responsibility when things go off track.
Our starting point is people, not organisations, this means putting our residents before organisational self-interest.
Key Messages and Principles
Key principles:
- engage stakeholders across all sectors in decision-making.
- move to place based and strength-based commissioning
- co-production with individuals, the wider citizenship and community care market
- critical thinking and problem solving with people with lived experience.
- local flexibility
- tong-term commitment from all partners
Key messages for Community Care Market sectors
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Sector |
Key Message |
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Care and Support at Home |
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Day Services and Employment |
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Supported Living |
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Extra Care |
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Short Breaks Care |
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Residential and Nursing |
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Specialist Residential and Nursing |
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Wirral Independence Service |
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Mental Health Services |
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Advocacy |
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Support for Carers |
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Shared Lives |
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Early Intervention and Prevention |
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Sensory Services |
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Healthwatch |
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Direct Payments |
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Carers
Unpaid carers, who hold families together, carry out a vitally important role. The Wirral Carers Strategy revised and relaunched in 2023, sets out values and priorities for the next three years, reaffirming the commitment and determination to help carers continue caring if they are willing and able, and to support their health and wellbeing by achieving outcomes they have identified that matter most to them.